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What about the men who run about the countryside painting signs that say “Jesus saves” and “Prepare to meet God!” Have you ever seen one of them, and I wonder what goes on in their minds. Strangely, their signs do not make me think of Jesus, but of them. Or perhaps it is “their Jesus” who gets in the way and makes all thought of Jesus impossible. They wish to force their Jesus upon us, and He is perhaps only a projection of themselves. They seem to be at times threatening the world with judgment and at other times promising it mercy. But are they asking simply to be loved and recognized and valued, for themselves? In any case, their Jesus is quite different from mine. But because their concept is different, should I reject it in horror, with distaste? If I do, perhaps I reject something in my own self that I no longer recognize to be there. And in any case, if I can tolerate their Jesus then I can accept and love them. Or I can at least conceive of doing so. Let not their Jesus be a barrier between us, or they will be a barrier between us and Jesus.
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- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, Ch. 15 “Sentences”, pg. 106
My heart is a wine glass and only Allah can make it sing. Only He can fill it. Only His touch to the lips of my heart has the right pressure and friction to produce the resonance that makes it sing and shatter into a million pieces. Only the voice of God can speak my pieces back into the Oneness that can only be filled by Him. I long to be Sufi.
Whether I be Sufi or Christian, I don’t know. I know the basics of what I believe. I know what my heart believes. I know that my faith always seems to be walking on the razor’s edge. CERTAINLY i don’t boast with this. So much i wish i had a normal faith like everyone else that is easily “explainable”. Will I always struggle with this feeling of being an outcast? Jesus was an outcast, and look. So I should be thankful of my “problem” I guess. Maybe belonging to man’s delineation of God’s Kingdom is not my purpose. I don’t know. All I know is that Allah chooses to fill my cup through the Sufis and the Christians. For some reason I don’t find fullness in Sufism or Christianity alone. My cup is filled through Allah and Christ. I know my God, because even when I think I don’t, He knows me. I rest in that.
Christ is in our midst, Insha’Allah.
To be a manager at Starbucks always teaches me of the tension between justice and mercy, judgment and grace. It helps me to learn the subtlety of loving people, while still holding them accountable. That we be accountable to the corporation I could care less, fuck “The Corporation”. Rather that we would be accountable to God in our own hearts or (at least) to each other out of the intrinsic god-person in the core of each human heart (whether you acknowledge God or not). This tension constantly pulls at the sinews of this god-muscle.
So with that I present this chapter of Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet”
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Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, “Speak to us of Crime and Punishment.”
And he answered saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
Like the ocean is your god-self;
It remains for ever undefiled.
And like the ether it lifts but the winged.
Even like the sun is your god-self;
It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent.
But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being.
Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man,
But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.
And of the man in you would I now speak.
For it is he and not your god-self nor the pigmy in the mist, that knows crime and the punishment of crime.
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
And this also, though the word lie heavy upon your hearts:
The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder,
And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed.
The righteous is not innocent of the deeds of the wicked,
And the white-handed is not clean in the doings of the felon.
Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,
And still more often the condemned is the burden-bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.
And when the black thread breaks, the weaver shall look into the whole cloth, and he shall examine the loom also.
If any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife,
Let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.
And let him who would lash the offender look unto the spirit of the offended.
And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the ax unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgment pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is a thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?
And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?
Is not remorse the justice which is administered by that very law which you would fain serve?
Yet you cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty.
Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.
And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?
Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self,
And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.
After watching an Indian film (called, ‘Water’) about Hindu widows, my heart got to thinking and asking…
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“What if your conscience conflicts with your faith?”
–quote from ‘Water’“I used to think that God was Truth, but now I know that Truth is God.”
–Ghandi (paraphrased)
“
If one seeks truth above all else, does one find God? Not necessarily…? Then how does one find Truth? Purely by God’s grace. Purely by God’s predestined grace!
Abraham was a righteous man. God loved and blessed him for his righteousness. How did Abraham find righteousness outside of ‘religion’? (The same goes for Buddha.) Why does everyone after him need religion to find righteousness? (what about relationship?) Is it about a guarantee or a ‘get out of jail free card’ or a ‘life insurance policy’? What does Jesus say about righteousness in the context of his cultural Judaism and outside that same context? Can we trust the ‘Christian Gospels’?
Legalism is bullshit, a mockery of the Truth and the Law. A mockery of the Heart. But what of purity? Is righteousness found in one Man? In returning to the purity of God’s creation that He called ‘Good’? In the many idols of mankind? Or in the act of TRYING?? Is it found in the depths of the longing of the Heart of Hearts? Is Righteousness found in the Heart? Can God put it there to be found if He so pleases? Does He do so in everyone? Where is righteousness to be found? How is righteousness to be found?
Questions are not a sign of doubt.
Doubt is not a lack of Faith.
Faith is not a sign of Truth.
Truth is not a lack of Questions.
…and the Dharma wheel turns…
Why do people seem to need a system to find God? Do people who search for God in a system really find Him?
Many people in the system will find God, Truth, Al-Haqq, but many may not. Many people outside the system will find God, Truth, Al-Haqq, but many may not. Are there no guarantees of God’s predestination to His Will? (this definitely isn’t a path for discipleship)
I feel like a spiritual or religious outcast. An untouchable. Caught between systems. I cling ever so tightly to the Lord of Outcasts and Untouchables, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God and Man.
Once a friend of mine whom I love, said to me (i’m paraphrasing), “I pray that you don’t go down with the ship, I’m not suggesting anything, but I hope that if she decides to go down she doesn’t take you with her. All I’m saying is that you never know how thing’s will work out and you should be prepared for the possibility that your marriage may not work out.” Let me say I love this person and accept their advise from the standpoint of the their life experience. But I have to disagree… not with their stance as a realist, but with the reluctance to throw ones entire lot in with the body of Christ, though it is painful and gut-wrenching to say. I don’t mean to judge, but if the Body of Jesus cannot contain or exist in the downward spiral, death, despair, anxiety and depression, delusion, illusion of humanity… …then Jesus failed.
I believe he did not.
If I am to be christ to my wife as Christ is to His Body, then that means indeed going down with the ship if the ship is going down; Just as Christ went down with this earthship! And when all hope is lost, the new hope of the kingdom of God rises from the depths of the ocean that is the spirit and grace of God.
There are times I think I should have become a monk. That I could have learned more of God or become closer to Him or that my life would be more closely aligned with Him or that the sign of my trials… her trials… means I made a mistake and God is… or I am just reaping the the harvest of my choices. Really it’s a dream of a cop out. An addiction. Because I somehow think that then I wouldn’t have to face the hardship or suffering that I and my beloved face today. In addition there’s so much that I feel I would be the poorer for if I had not married Her. Frankly even though I have no experience in this and am a total fool saying this… But that is… that if followed with much love, dedication and sobriety of spirit, marriage to a wife is just as deeply and mystically refining, perfecting and rewarding as marriage to Christ through monasticism. It is marriage to Christ either way. One can be a David or Judas in both. One can be a saint or a satan in either.
The Truth is, when my beloved is suffering and I have to choose either shirking my love and covenant to her or swallowing my self-ness, fatigue, frustration, anger, resentment, bitterness… I cannot swallow anything really. The only way I am able to love my beloved in these moments (I am poor in myself, forgive me) is through Christ, through Christ living in me, through sacrificing my self with Christ in the moments of despair and rage and bitterness.
… and I fail miserably at this… the battle between forgiveness and bitterness, between rage and acceptance, erupts in my chest.
أيها الرب يسوع المسيح ابن الله, إرحمني أنا الخاطئ – Ayyuha-r-Rabbu Yasū` al-Masīħ, Ibnu-l-Lāh, irħamnī ana-l-khāti’ – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
I Love You,
Your Beloved
Thank you immensely for doing so.
So I’ve been thinking about and writing these thought down when they occur to me. It’s not very well hashed out just some fragments, but here’s what I’ve got so far…
…
A disaffected voter. One day at the (in)famous coffee shop I work for, a “partner” of mine said, “If you don’t vote you can’t complain!” At the time this statement pissed me off so, and I responded, somewhat angrily, “That assumes that voting makes a difference!” and she pessimistically agreed, but then we were both left in despair. So what’s the full circle in this conversation that moves from death to life? In that moment I couldn’t put my finger on what pissed me off so much about her dogmatic assumption. But what I really meant was, “That statement assumes that voting changes the conditions in your life that you want changed!” Exterior change is what I think I need in order to feel supported and whole. So I assume that different exterior conditions will produce different interior results.
The Loss of Ritual.
Exterior cannot change the interior except through Ritual! Because ritual is an portal/effigy that points to a spiritual reality not seen with the eyes of the head, but with the eyes of the heart.
Election seems to be a kind of ritual on the surface. So why cannot it offer an interior change as other ritual do? It used to be a sacred ritual, but in recent years, even the last two hundred years, the money changers and thieves have entered the temple and set up shop. The effacement to the temple has caused Him to leave it in dust and seek other means. Upon His shoulders the government stands, as does it fall. Falling doesn’t mean falling apart but rather a changing of the guard. Changing from the Divine Guard to the guard of man and along comes mans corruption with him. (By NO MEANS am I suggesting that turning to some kind of Theocracy is the right way.) So all that’s left is a sterilized made for TV mockery of the true ritual. This worship of the profane and lack of truth is why the electoral process or the government itself has lost it’s power to enact interior change. Now I wouldn’t say that government should be religious. But it should be holy, with a lower case “h”, set apart. Respected and kept holy as ritual.
What do you expect to get from voting, politics, politicians or government? Health, peace, abundance, security, prosperity, fulfillment, hope, harmony? This list of expectations sound vaguely familiar to something Jesus talks about called, “The Reign of God.” “Render unto Cesar what is Cesar’s and to God what is His.”
Who or what do you put your trust in, god or man?
and to whom does your trust really belong to? God or Cesar? To whom do you give the fulfillment of your heart?
If there is One* Power… in the light of that One Power, what other power can have reality? There is no other power, no other reality that can exist along side that of Divine. Sure there are things we give power/reality to by giving assent to them, but aside from the power/reality we as co-creative human beings give to something other than the Divine, what other power is there?
The Reign of God IS. …a matter of realization obtained fully through the graces of God. “Those who have eyes to see, let them see and those who have ears to hear, let them hear.” or how about “Pick up your mat and walk. Upon hearing this the man picked up his mat and walked.” Your faith/trust/realization of Divine Reality has made you well. The Reign of God is NOW within you! Perception changes reality. Not just your own, but everyone else’s as well!
A false dichotomy. Reliance on men, politicians, governments. This man or that man, this politician or that politician, this government or that government, this dogma or that dogma. The Truth will set you free. Truth is non dogmatic, but essential (of essence) and transmutational in nature. In my experience Real Truth seem to always present itself as non-dualistic and paradoxical.
A “falser” dichotomy. Having to choose between reliance on man or reliance on God. God works through all things. The weight of circumstantial and relational issues seems to try to do a great deal to keep me occupied and out of direct service of the Creator Messiah. I say “direct” as opposed to “indirect”, for who can escape the Oneness of God? There is nothing else. Consequently we all play a role in service to Creator, willing or unwilling… But to be sure you cannot recognize this “falser” dichotomy until you recognize the One Power. For to start from the “falser” dichotomy would be still de/illusion.
Why Vote?
I don’t know yet. Let you know when I figure that one out.
Seeking the Truth
“If you asked Jesus if you should seek after truth or seek after himself. He would tell you to seek after the truth”, because somehow the Truth keeps getting found in this God-man. The more I seek the truth through other realizations the more often I come back to Jesus and see how the One Power transmutes the truth throughout everything. This constant returning to Jesus doesn’t lessen the importance of my path through other ways, nor does it diminish the Truth of Jesus. One upholds the other, one cyclically bolsters the other in a mysterious and wonderful way of death and resurrection. This no doubt is only by God’s grace.
Living with Doubt
Go to the Death. To really go to the Death of Jesus, means so much more than most (myself included) even dare to think of. Jesus the divine, the epitome of humanity DIES! God in man dies! CAN YOU HEAR ME???!!!! When Jesus was crucified, every human being was crucified. When Jesus rose from the dead, so did every single human being. Why is there division? Why is there wheat and chaff? It goes back to realization. Every person is already purified by the sacrifice of The Lamb. Perception changes reality. If you can’t go to the Death of Humanity, you can’t reach the Resurrection of it either!!!! Shit this lands on me like a ton of bricks! I love you! Every time I think about Jesus dying on the cross, I never really believe he dies! Because three days later he is raised from the dead. I never really believe he rises because I never really believe he dies. Resurrection is “simply inconceivable!” Jesus’ Death is simply inconceivable if he showed up alive three days later! You have to go to the Death! Without death you’re never even born! Go to the Death FIRST!
In this world we think birth moves toward death, but in Reality we all move through Death towards Birth. The delusion of birth toward death is another example of this upside down kingdom. And maybe it’s that the perception of the process of human life is paradoxical/non-dualistic. Maybe truth is the axle that lies at the center of these two dichotomies, Birth to Death or Death to Birth. Or maybe it’s late at night and I need to go to bed. Yes grasshopper!
* (“One” is not commenting on triune nature/relationship, “One” rather speaks to the Unity of the Divine, since all persons are of the same essence/matter)
This sentence from Chapter 3.II.2. really struck deep. “The emptiness of the past and the future can never be filled with words but only by the presence of a man (human).” pg.65
do “the people” have a voice or is it just a din of murmuring or a deafening roar?
I was listening to a great song by, “the moldy peaches” and some of the lyrics to their song, “loose lips” got stuck in my head.
“. . .
we’re just dancing, we’re just hugging,
singing, screaming, kissing, tugging
on the sleeve of how it used to be
how’s it gonna be?
i’ll drop kick russell stover, move into the starting over house
and know matt rouse and jest are watching me achieve my dreams
and we’ll pray, all damn day, every day,
that all this shit our president has got us in will go away
while we strive to figure out a way we can survive
these trying times without losing our mindsso if you wanna burn yourself remember that I LOVE YOU
and if you wanna cut yourself remember that I LOVE YOU
and if you wanna kill yourself remember that I LOVE YOU
call me up before your dead, we can make some plans instead
send me an IM, i’ll be your friendshysters live from scheme to scheme and my 4th quarter pipe dreams
are seeming more and more worth fighting for
so i’ll curate some situations, make my job a big vacation
and i’ll say FUCK BUSH AND FUCK THIS WAR
my war paint is sharpie ink and i’ll show you how much my shit stinks
and ask you what you think because your thoughts and words are powerful
they think we’re disposable, well both my thumbs opposable
are spelled out on a double word and triple letter scorewe won’t stop until somebody calls the cops
and even then we’ll start again and just pretend that
nothing ever happened
. . .”
but specifically:
“. . . FUCK BUSH AND FUCK THIS WAR. . .”
and so I got to thinking about this rebel call for judgment. Judgment is such a tricky thing and it’s trickier when you’re angry. I apologize for the weepy, whiny, preachy tone of this rant, but it was 3 am when I wrote it. couldn’t sleep.
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I hate Bush. It doesn’t feel good to say that. I’m just being honest about this emotion in my chest. But then again most politicians don’t impress me much, even the impressive ones. There doesn’t seem to be any hope for the voice of the people to be heard through our form of democracy. Power isn’t in the hands of the voter, it’s in the hands of the people counting the votes. Anyway back to Bush…
If he were to stand in front of me and try to charm me with that practiced smile of his, I would at the least stare him down and at the most spit in his face and call him out for the greedy sick coward he is. I would tell him of all the calamity, despair, pain, sickness, suffering, destruction and death he has caused by the word of his tung and the sign of his hand. I would tell the man of the broken families, the tormented minds, the fractured, shattered communities, the vapid desolation he has wrought, the countries he’s raped, the families he’s murdered and the souls he has coveted as his own.
Then I would take the back of my hand and slap him to the ground. I would shout in his face and say, “you fool after all this all you can do is start another war?! You commit suicide on behalf of your country, pulling us all into this abyss along with you. Your insatiable greed, lust for power, your grand consumerism has made you drunk on the wine made from grapes of wrath!” the lack of response from his weakened frame and the pure void that echoes back through the blackness of his eyes, tells me that all I’m doing is yelling into my own broken soul, my own broken heart.
Now I find myself weeping for this… man… no different than I. When I accuse him, I accuse myself. I am capable of all this and so much more. If human beings act as mirrors to one another, how can I pass judgment on him without passing judgment on myself?
Have you never found yourself under such impossible responsibility and said, “oh shit…” then found yourself making the biggest mistakes of your life? In those instances one has to decide, “Do I check in or do I check out?” Maybe Bush just decided to check out. I feel empathy for Bush… in this moment.
I’m not trying to play the naive peacemaker. Bush may very well be an evil man. He may very well be ware of all of the evil his decisions or lack there of, have brought about. He may even revel in it or in his power for all I know.
But if I am to take Jesus seriously, turn the cheek, love my enemies, be gentle as a dove and wise as a serpent, then I must give Bush the benefit of the doubt and approach him with mercy. I must believe him when he lies to my face. I must take his word even though he’s lied and manipulated me a thousand times before. This doesn’t mean I fall for his deception, it just means … God’s wisdom appears foolishness to men. This way we follow is a way of forgiveness, peace, mercy and love for us humans. God’s justice prevails by our tuning karma on it’s head, by God using us to turn Karma on it’s head. Justice prevails by showing mercy. Otherwise the cross is full of shit. Otherwise the Divine is a hypocrite. When we show unconditional love, compassion, and mercy we do pass judgment, not our own but God’s. What is the deeper meaning to , “returning kindness for malice pours burning coals on your enemy’s head”. This is not some one sided farce that is dreamed up by the spineless ideals of men, but it’s a part of the fullness of God’s living message and kingdom here on earth.
There are those in the body that use “Love” as a cop out to deny and usurp the harshness of this faith. But there is also a love uncommonly explored that with it’s own outward compassion, pierces the heart of the lover and turns law, karma and man’s sense of justice/fairness on it’s head. I wonder about Judas. what’s his measure? Not sure what that question means, it just popped out…
This is the love that allows the believers in china to practice the way, it is the love that allows the martyrs in Iran to not die in bitterness and anger toward their persecutor, it is the love that we as followers of the way of Jesus must cling to. We must become martyrs to our own egos, we must allow that love to murder our judgment, rage, fear, bitterness and resentment towards a system that’s just doing what’s in it’s own nature. Dare I say that only through martyrdom will the church (or has the church) ever make an impact on the system. This isn’t agreeing with Bush or giving in to him, but instead giving into the Messiah as an alternative to worldly accent. It is rendering to God what is God’s.
Thank you very much.
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